


Love for This Book

by Greekhoop



Category: Poitical RPF - Latin America
Genre: M/M, Motorcycles, Outdoor Sex, Poetry, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greekhoop/pseuds/Greekhoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing book and a spell of bad weather almost ruin Che's day. Then things start to improve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love for This Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zombieboyband](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombieboyband/gifts).



> Knowing that Pablo Neruda was a favorite poet of both the main characters, my first impulse was to look to his work for inspiration. That turned out to be a bad idea, because then I had to find a way to make Neruda end happily.

If the book had not had the sanctity afforded by great age to advocate for it, then they would not have been here now. It was not a rare book or a valuable book or even a book with a great deal of sentimental attachment. There was no inscription on the front flap from a comrade long-dead or a sweetheart left behind. It was just a simple cloth-bound volume of poetry, the kind that might be had twice or three times over for the price of a three peso note. The pages were pulp, spotty with age but not with careless treatment. Fidel was not a man who read while eating or while in the bath or while doing anything but putting the whole of his attention into the task at hand.

He was also not a man who believed in mislaying the things that had been entrusted to him, and the slim little book with the cloth cover and the primary school binding was no exception.

That was why Che was here now, holding their gas camping lantern up to illuminate the ditch that ran along the side of a country road, while Fidel went a little ahead of him, sweeping the weeds flat with his boot and searching.

“I’ll buy you another,” Che said. “I will buy you so much Neruda that your jaw will be tired before you have finished mouthing the words while you read them.”

“I do not mouth the words while I read them,” Fidel said. “I think I would know if I did such a thing.”

“So much Neruda that you will be sick of him, and you will long for a return to those slick little paeans to daffodils and newborn babies that appear in the weekly magazines.”

“I don’t need that much Neruda,” Fidel said patiently. It was Che’s custom of late to try to bait him into some display of temper, just as it was Fidel’s custom to refuse to take that bait. “I need only one small volume. The one that has gone missing.”

“It was your fault for letting it slip out of your pocket,” Che said.

“And it was yours for driving that damned motorbike of yours too fast. I was distracted trying to keep up with your antics. You are as reckless as a small child, my friend. Or a drunk. Or a small, drunk child.”

“Remind me, my friend, which of us it was who wanted to see the country by motorbike. Because it would be romantic, you said. And, by the way, you still haven’t told me which meaning of the word you intended…”

“I know it’s around here somewhere,” Fidel said quietly, as if to himself. “I had it when we passed the fork leading to Asuncion.”

Che cast a glance upward. The sky was very dark, without a single star in it. “I think it’s going to rain.”

“Stop shaking the light,” Fidel said. “I can’t see anything with you fidgeting like that.”

“You can’t see anything because it’s _dark out_.”

Fidel did not seem to believe this needed to be dignified with a response. He went on, and Che followed him, silent and alert. A little bickering between comrades was good for the spiritual and intellectual health, but he knew that Fidel would not abide any actual complaining or serious attempts to sway him from the task at hand. He would have thought such things were signs of weakness or of a flawed character, and indeed Che would have agreed with him on both counts.

Che did not wish to be a liability or a burden or even a poor friend, not to Fidel or to anyone else. Even when the wind picked up and the night rapidly turned cold, he did not say a word. He did not even shiver, for that would have jostled the lantern.

A flash of lightning lit the empty sky, and Che cast his gaze upward, listening for a peal of thunder to accompany it. The thunder came almost at once, and it seemed to split the very air itself. He could smell rain on the wind.

“My friend…” Che said.

And Fidel replied, “Bring the light closer.”

Che did as Fidel had said, and when he held the lantern down it revealed a small cloth-bound volume of poetry half-hidden by the grass. _The House in the Sand_ read the flaking, blackened goldleaf on the spine.

Fidel snatched the book from the ground. When he straightened up again and turned around, he and Che were face to face. He held the book in both hands, held it gently, for indeed it looked like a small and delicate thing in his strong fingers.

“I told you we would find it, my friend.” He smiled a self-effacing smile, his eyes lowering so that they were no longer fixed on Che’s face, as if he had just now realized the absurdity of what they had done.

“So you did,” Che replied mildly. He did not have time for anything else. At that moment, lightning flashed again and the thunder came hard upon its heels. The sky ripped open and it began to rain. It was a torrent, as if the rain were not falling but being poured.

They were soaked to the skin in seconds.

Cursing soundly, the bolted back up the road toward the little grove of trees where their half-made camp awaited. Che held the lantern out to one side. It swung loosely while he ran, throwing strange shadows. He could hear the rain hissing and spitting as it struck the hot glass. Fidel had thrust the book up under his shirt and khaki coat as soon as the rain began, and now he ran with one arm clasped to his midsection to protect it.

The camp was far enough back that Che had time to wonder how he had ever let Fidel talk him into walking so far. By the time they reached the grove, Che’s breath was coming in wet and ragged gasps. He could feel his windpipe pinching shut, the familiar rigidness taking shape in the center of his chest.

He tried to hide it from Fidel. He knelt quickly once they were back beneath the shelter of the trees and found the wood he had collected earlier relatively dry. Counting out the seconds of each breath so that it would not sound like he was gasping, Che began to arrange the wood for a fire. His fingers stumbled over the task. They seemed not like parts of his hands at all, but rather like crude and difficult to manipulate tools, put to a task for which they were not suited.

Che did not hear Fidel crouch down beside him. He didn’t even notice him there until one of Fidel’s hands came down over his own, stilling it.

“Go rest yourself.”

Che shook his head, steeling himself so that he could speak without pausing for breath. “I can do this.”

“My friend, just as you have assisted me in a foolish task, so will I assist you when you foolishly try to do what is necessary.”

Che looked at him, trying to convey with his eyes that he was not leaving because he wanted to, but rather because he had to. He did not think he had much success, though. For all the poets liked to speak of the eloquence of eyes, they were actually quite deceptive and inscrutable little organs.

He sat down beneath the boughs of the trees. He could hear the rain rattling on the branches above, but very little broke through the canopy of leaves. They had picked this place well, he thought. They would not have found such a good place as this if Fidel had not insisted they stop early so he could search for the lost book.

Closing his eyes, Che leaned back against the sturdy trunk of the willow. After a while, he heard the companionable cracks and pops of the fire taking hold. He did not move beside it right away; first he waited until the knot in his chest had loosened, fading to the dull ache of remembered pain. Then he slid across the damp grass to sit opposite Fidel.

“I hope that you are satisfied,” he said.

Fidel did not look at him. In the firelight, his hair looked red and red highlights caught in the pits of his eyes as if he were blazing within. His clothes gave off plumes of steam. “I see you are feeling better, my friend.”

“I feel fine,” Che said. “Did your book survive?”

For a moment, Fidel did not seem to know what he was talking about, as if he had forgotten the book entirely. Then, he drew it out from under his coat and flipped the pulpy pages. He lingered for a little longer on one of them, though surely he could not read it in the dim light. It didn’t matter; they both knew all the words by heart.

At last, Fidel set the book on the ground on his right, and patted the grass on his left. “Come sit beside me, my friend.”

Che felt that he had known this moment would come, though in truth he had not thought about it in any kind of concrete or plausible way. He had not thought about it at all for weeks, and he had not missed it for months. Still, he was glad for it now, and, as he slid across the damp grass to Fidel’s side, he had the impression that he moved in a single fluid and unbroken line, out of the distant past and into this moment, now.

“You still did not tell me what you meant when you said this trip would be romantic.”

“Yes,” Fidel replied. “That word does have a number of meanings.”

“Fanciful or impractical, for example,” Che said.

“A colorful tale.”

“A preoccupation with love.”

Fidel did not get a chance to respond. Che had already grabbed him and kissed his mouth. He felt rather than heard Fidel catch his breath, and then he felt Fidel’s hands come up to clutch at his shoulders. Che could smell the not-unpleasant sweetness of cigar smoke on him. They both smoked heavily, and Che had long since lost the ability to smell it on himself, but another body, so close to him now, acted as a filter upon his senses.

He was on his back without knowing how he had gotten there and Fidel was on top of him, kissing him still. A black silhouette in the firelight, more shadow than man.

Che still retained some of the practical nature of the guerilla leader. Though they both tore off each other’s clothes in a fit of passion, Che made sure that most of them ended up near the fire so they would dry.

First in Mexico City, then in the mountains, then in Havana, these moments they spent together had always been characterized by desperation and stealth and heady secrecy. Though there was no one around now to see them, and no God in heaven to overhear, they seemed to know no other way to meet each other than upon a battleground of violent silences.

Fidel’s hand came down over Che’s mouth, muffling his small gasps and moans, making him moan all the more for its heavy and callused presence. He has hands of a warrior, Che thought, the hands of a great, great man.

It was enough to make you cry for the sheer poetry of it.

Afterwards, when they were sated, they lay side-by-side and listened to the rain drum upon the leaves above. Che had exerted himself again, but he did not feel another attack coming on. He held himself very still and listened to all the small secretive whispers his body made until he was certain that all was well.

Within and without, all had been set straight.

Not looking at him when he began to speak, Fidel began to recite the old familiar verse, “ _The memory of you emerges from the night around me…_ ”

Che only laughed. “Now, don’t start that again.”

~The End


End file.
